As he promotes his new memoir, former Vice President Dick Cheney is flatly denying that he manipulated George W. Bush’s vice presidential selection process in 2000 so he could end up the Texas governor’s running mate.

Bush picked Cheney to direct his vice presidential search process but ended up rejecting Cheney’s recommendations and picking the former Wyoming congressman and Defense Secretary.

“You know, I get accused sometimes of manipulating the search to put myself on the list,” Cheney said in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Hannity show scheduled to air tonight. “If I was interested I would have said ‘yes’ a couple of months before, when they first asked me if I was willing to be considered for VP.”

Cheney said he agreed to assist Bush in picking a running mate because “I could do that without having to give up my daytime job” with Texas-based Halliburton Corp. His goal, he said, was to “have performed good service for the campaign.”

Once involved in it, he said, he discovered “it’s a fascinating process. I was delighted to have the opportunity to serve.”

Although Bush was open to having the Washington political veteran as his running mate, Cheney said he told the Texas governor for months that he didn’t want the job.

“But it was true,” he said. “I did turn it down until we got down to the end of the process, and he persuaded me that I was what he was looking for.”